Blood Bound
by See Through You
Summary: Aurelia, heir to the combined throne of the Avians and Serpiente, knows how to suck it up and get the job done and considers herself an expert on the bizarre. Then, Sive and her are sent back in time by a medallion that contains an echo of Keisha and Alasdair. They want her to right an ancient wrong, but without their complete memories this proves difficult.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Assume that everything after Snakecharm never happened, with the exception of the existence of Sive. Oliza was never born, Aurelia is a completely different person. This is an experiment using third person and all chapters will be under a thousand words. Reviews are always welcome, thanks for reading!**

Aurelia Shardae Cobriana was having a very bad day. It had started out with a rather small thing; her golden blonde hair refusing to cooperate with her. So she had scraped it back in a bun with minimal grumbling. Then she had unfortunately spilled orange juice on her dress, requiring her to change into the only available clothing at the moment, a dancer's dress (and not the most modest one though she wasn't the one who had a problem with it). Next she had been forced to break up an argument between an Avian male and Serpiente male with a few words and a well placed glare from garnet eyes; all the while trying to be intimidating wearing her dancer's dress. After that she had received a rather convoluted note from her aunt Sive (who was really more like an eccentric younger sibling) asking to meet her in an out of the way place at the old palace because she had found something _exciting _and wanted to show her_._ Yay.

The place was so far off the beaten path that Sive had helpfully included directions. But typically for Sive they were written in her usual bizarre fashion. As it was, Aurelia was quite impressed with herself for being able to keep up thus far. After taking a right at the intersection with the abstract painting that looked like a cow crossing a river, she almost fell down the flight of stairs because she was so busy studying the directions. She muttered something under her breath that would have caused her grandmother to fix her with a steely glare followed by a pointed comment on how a lady behaves; before she continued gracefully down the stairs with perfect posture.

With one more glance between the piece of paper in her hands and the alcove in front of her that seemed to lead to well…nothing, she shrugged her shoulders and hesitantly stepped into the niche with one hand held out in front of her face. When her hand encountered nothing but air her steps became more confident until she found herself in the middle of a small room with Sive kneeling on the ground facing the far wall. She took a few seconds to steady her emotional control before walking closer.

"Okay, I'm here. What's with all the secrecy? Why didn't you want me to bring a guard?"

"Guards have eyes and ears." She replied vaguely, still facing the wall.

Aurelia rolled her eyes but continued to step forward until she was right beside her.

"See here?" Sive pointed to faded writing at her eye level. "It's old and as you know the language of the Dasi better that me, I was hoping you could translate this."

"You sent me a cryptic note, to translate some old writing on a wall?"

"If it was just writing I would not have bothered you; but the illustrations that accompany it piqued my curiosity."

She knelt down next to her as Sive shifted out of the way. The colors were faded, but the images were mostly clear. They showed the two distinct crests of the Cobriana and Shardae family, followed by another illustration that clearly meant war. Aurelia shifted her gaze to the next drawing that showed a man and a women with the distinctive markings of both families. The next image was of the combined family crest, the same one that she wore on her finger to symbolize her status as heir.

She turned over the note and took the pen that Sive held out to her and copied down the words before slowly beginning the translation. Abandoning her pen to trace over the engraved letters with her fingertips to get a better look at what the letters actually were underneath the decorative swirls; she jerked her hand away in surprise when she felt a sharp pinprick. She looked from the single drop of blood that was welling on her fingertip to the hidden compartment that had sprung forward. Sive and her exchanged looks before Aurelia cautiously lifted the medallion out by the metal chain and dangled it from her fingers. The image stamped onto it was obscured by dust so Sive reached forward to wipe the dust off. As soon as her skin made contact with the medallion there was a flash of white light that blinded the both of them, a rush of sounds, and then… nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

She came to with a blinding headache and an elbow wedged in her back. With a loud huff of breath Aurelia rolled over onto her stomach. The sensation reminded her of the one and only time she had tried alcohol before deciding that the hangover wasn't worth it and she didn't like the taste anyway. She cautiously sat up with the chain of the medallion still wrapped around her fingers and looked around the room. They were in the same place but something was off. After rubbing at her temples she poked Sive insistently on her arm until she woke up, opened her eyes, winced, and immediately closed them.

"What happened? Are you okay, Ree?"

"Besides a raging headache? Yeah. As for what happened, I'm not sure. You touched the medallion and then I passed out."

"That's all I remember too."

The paper was laying on the ground and Aurelia picked it up. That's when what was "off" with the scene registered. The floor was dusty and when she had first walked into the room Sive's footprints had disturbed the dust. Looking at the floor now she could see no marks.

"Open your eyes, look at the floor."

Sive sat up and raked her eyes over the floor. "What am I looking for?"

"It's not what's there, it's what isn't."

"Okaaay."

There was a beat of silence then, "There's no footprints."

"Why would there be no footprints?"

"I don't know."

The paper had become crumpled in her hand and she smoothed it out after letting the medallion fall gently to the floor. She glanced from the unfinished translation in her hand to the wall and back again.

"I'm going to finish the translation, maybe it will give us a clue as to what happened."

While Aurelia struggled through the archaic and flowery language of the Dasi, Sive picked up the medallion and used her shirt to wipe off the worst of the dust. Her eyebrows drew together as the image was revealed.

"A pentagram?" With growing curiosity Sive flipped it over and repeated the same cleaning process. It revealed the combined crest of the Shardae and Cobriana families. "This doesn't make any sense. This is _old, _why would your family crest be on this?"

"I think that the writing will explain some things."

Aurelia's face was void of any emotion and her voice was even. Sive knew that she only withdrew like that when she hurt or shocked.

"Well, what does it say?"

"I'm sure it sounded prettier before I translated it but the gist of it is: 'When the two become united, the one will pave the way for the return of the old and will see justice done.' Or at least, that's what I think is says."

"That sounds like a prophecy and I make an effort to stay as far away from them as I can."

"But there haven't been any prophecies since we had magic."

"_You_ have magic."

"I should rephrase that to say sense the general population had magic."

"But in almost every story recorded prophecies end with tragedy and blind people wandering around begging for food."

"But those prophecies always foretold death, this one doesn't mention anything like that. And those people tried to avoid their fate which is why bad things happened. I have no intention of running away from this."

Aurelia's voice was still calm as she stared down at the words she had written.

"Oh, now you've slipped into responsible heir mode. There's no arguing with you when you're like this."

Sive passed the necklace back to her. "I have a feeling that this is supposed to be yours, you're obviously the 'one' that the prophecy is talking about."

She accepted it and slipped it over her head. "We should talk to my parents, maybe they know something."

"Good idea."

She helped Sive up and walked with purpose out of the room and into the halls. Her thoughts were scrambling over each other to try to figure out the last part of the prophecy and why they had passed out (and why her head was still aching).

All of these thoughts came to a screeching halt as they stepped out into one of the main connecting hallways.

"Who are you?"


End file.
